This is what I like about being on the internet; that I can contact people who will respond; like you do. Throughout most of my life, I hardly ever had anyone to talk to; and I suffered from extreme loneliness. Now that I can contact internet friends, my sense of isloated loneliness has ended. I have been able to express myself fully, while finally having people reading and responding very positively to my writing. I didn’t get myself an e-mail address until August 2006, but since then, being on line with writers like myself, has been the most satisfying time of my life.

I thank you for that Nancy, and all my other WTF? friends, now on facebook, but first on webook, and all the other websites where I have people I communicate with as friends. I thank all of you.

The internet certainly has changed the way we connect with each other ~ it simultaneously brings us closer together in cyber time, and pushes us farther apart in real time (since we have less time for sitting on front porches to chat with passersby).

BTW: I’ve been unable to access WEbook for the past few weeks. It seems to have disappeared from the radar screen. Do you know whether it’s a temporary vs. a permanent departure?

On December 30, I received the following message on facebook, from Richard W. Scott:

“Well, I am officially bummed out. It looks like WEbook has finally gone belly up, and I still haven’t gotten to my big download. Some two hundred short stories, essays, poems and such have flitted off into the ether. Sure hope I’m wrong, but this seems like the longest hiatus so far. Grumble.”

That message received almost 30 replies including one from me, in which I said,

” I’ve just checked out webook, and all that’s displayed is their home page. My own account has vanished. I had 28 projects posted, including dozens of entries in the WTF? projects, along with over 200 comments, and I don’t know how many personal messages. Maybe they should have informed all of us members ahead of time, so we’d have had the time to download whatever we wanted from our accounts, before they went out of business, or whatever you call what’s happened. However, the end of webook is not the end of writers’ websites. Over the past few years, Ive also posted copies of many of my stories on the following writers’ websites: http://www.fanfiction.net , http://www.fictionpress.com , http://www.wattpad.com . http://www.figment.com and http://www.fannation.shades-of-moonlight.com . I suggest that those among us, who still want to post their writings on writers’ websites, should check them all out; along with others in which I’m not a member.”

Interesting questions, Nancy. I have no idea how I would respond without being in the situation. My feeling is that each day would have moments, however fleeting, of beauty. And that might keep one going. But who knows?

I agree, Kate. It’s hard to know since it’s so far afield from the realms of my experiences to date. If survival came easily enough, I expect I would trudge along, hoping that someone else would eventually appear on the horizon.

Since I just posted about a woman alone on an island for 18 years I have been think about how I responded when I saw the movie Castaway. We saw it in the theater and then I must have watched it half a dozen times through the years. There is something in the Hanks character that just pulls me in and gives me such an emotional kick-back. I think it is the idea that life went on for others while he was just trying to survive. The loss of true connection with others left a hole in his life beyond the years on the island. It really kind of haunts me. I connect to others very easily and although I’m really an introvert by nature, I do need people. And all the reasons for that aren’t at all clear to me, but I’m really intrigued with the questions you’ve posited. I’m eager to see what others continue to say!

Onto the philosophical stuff: It’s surely about people and companionship. Who wants to eat at an empty restaurant or go to a movie theater that has no other patrons? Rationally, it should be better. You get faster service in one case, and in the other, you can sit wherever you want and have no concern that someone will talk during the film… but then you miss out on the collective experience. Isn’t a comedy 10 times funnier when 200 people are laughing with you?

I recall seeing the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Menace, on opening day in 1999. By most accounts, the film is a miserable disappointment, but I’ll never forget the cheers that went up as “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away” appeared on the screen. The fact that all of us strangers, most of whom would never cross paths again, could share the same emotional connection for the same reason at the same moment, was far more significant than the merit of the actual movie we were watching.

I have the option of working at home or in the office. Worklng at home means I get to listen to music while I work, plus I can shave a hour an twenty minutes of driving each day, not to mention saving gas. Yet, within two days of working at home, I can’t stand the isolation anymore. I willingly use up time and fuel to drive into the office about 9 days out of 10 just so i can interact with my co-workers and friends.

Eating at an empty restaurant would make me wonder whether it had been featured on “Dirty Dining” due to cockroaches or mold found in the kitchen. 😯

I agree with all your thoughts for most of the people, most of the time, BUT (you knew it was coming) . . . I’ve “worked” (some might say “played”) from home for the past 5 years and would HATE to return to the workplace. I much prefer NOT having to get up, get dressed, pack a lunch, commute (through rain, sleet, or snow), park, and head into an office for 8-13 hours.

Been there, done that, got the W-2 forms to prove it. 😀

Hmm . . . if ever there was a candidate for a desert island, maybe I’m it?

I remember being sad too . . . but it was vicarious sadness, felt because Tom Hanks was sad. If he’d been happy that Wilson was heading off (like a message in a bottle), I would have been happy too. Mirror Neurons help us commiserate.

In contrast, when Old Yeller died, I was devastated. Directly. No intermediary required. If the characters had thrown a party to celebrate his death, I still would have cried.

I just read a book, (Say Yes to Change) where the author’s perspective was that Tom Hanks’ relationship with Wilson opened Hanks’ character to the deep connection of relationship and eventually to developing compassion.

What I love about humans is the way they can take a story simply written about about a man who has a ball with … er, as … a companion, and interpret it as a theological depiction of the human condition in a universal spatio/termporal continuum – or vice versa! 🙂

I think nature intended for all of it’s creations to have some sort of companionship. I visualize someone living in total isolation in an island talking to the trees or rocks … a voice needs to be heard.

At times, people are tedious. They talk about “fluff and nonsense” just to fill the airspace. But they can also be quite entertaining and amusing. It’s rather like that box of chocolate that Tom Hanks (as Forest Gump) described . . . you never know what you’re going to get.